[Sidenote: The Arab the result of hard food.]

The Arab has a legend that his horse came from the stable of King
Solomon. From the book of Kings it appears that Solomon was a great
horse dealer. He imported them largely from Egypt, and he supplied
certain kings with them. The merchandise which he received from Arabia
is enumerated, and though it is not stated that he supplied horses in
part payment for this merchandise, it is not improbable that he did so.
Speaking liberally, in Arabia the sole food of the horse is barley and
straw; and the terseness of structure of the Arab may be said to be the
result of three thousand years of hard food, if we reckon only from the
_modern_ horse-keeper King Solomon. Fuerant autem in Egypto semper
praestantissimi equi. And, shades of Bunsen! how many thousand years of
hard food shall we add to the account for our horses' Egyptian ancestry?
Moses and Miriam sang their dirge on the shore of the Red Sea, in the
reign of a _mediaeval_ Pharaoh, but their "early progenitors," as Mr.
Darwin would phrase it, might have enjoyed the barley of the _ancient_
King Menes. To hard food we must add early work, for the Arab is worked
at two years old.

[Sidenote: So is our thorough-bred horse.]

Our thorough-bred horse, the descendant of the Arab, has been bred under
the same natural conditions somewhat improved; that is, he has had
_better_ hard food in unlimited quantity, he is earlier trained, the
goodness of both sire and dam are proved to an ounce, and performance
only is bred from. What is the consequence? In Evelyn's days Arabs and
barbs raced at Newmarket. In later days, in the give and take plates
there, winners are recorded of thirteen hands high, and the size of a
stud horse of fourteen hands was advertised. Now, if a horse is under
sixteen hands his size is not mentioned, and all the world is our
customer at L5000 or L6000 a horse. And if more people had the skill to
ride him, the merits of the thorough-bred horse as a hunter would be
better known; though, indeed, under any circumstances, it is but the
sweepings of the training stable which descends to the hunting field or
private life.

[Sidenote: All _breeds_ result from natural conditions.]

The first axiom of the breeder is--est in equis patrum virtus--"Like
produces like." But the second axiom is, "The goodness of the horse goes
in at his mouth." The moral is, that like produces like only under like
natural conditions. Turn out